


Build Me Another and Call it Jersusalem

by IneffablePareidolia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst, Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a danger demon, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Inspired by Speremint, Inspired by Speremint's Reversed Omens Art, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Reverse Omens au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffablePareidolia/pseuds/IneffablePareidolia
Summary: After a strange encounter, Crowley is cast into a world where he did not Fall. Aziraphale is a much better demon than Crowley ever dreamt of being, but Heaven has dangerous plans.Reversed Omens AU inspired by Speremint’s artwork and the character notes in Good Omens, where Adam is only listed as “an” antichrist, not “the” antichrist.------“You love him,” she says, soft and low, the way you coo at a lost child in a Sainsbury’s, and Crowley shakes his head against the tricks of the lighting. He wants to deny it. He wants to leave. He wants Aziraphale.“Yes,” he answers her, just as soft.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 125





	1. A Demon and An Antichrist

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Reverse Omens AU based off of Speremint's incredible Good Omens artwork (https://speremint.tumblr.com/). Throughout Good Omens, I thought that Aziraphale would be a much more effective demon than Crowley. I started working on a demon-Aziraphale story but couldn't quite nail it down until I saw Speremint's amazing work, which is why there are a few slight differences from Speremint's comic/Reverse Omens universe. The title is from a Richard Siken poem, "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out."

The woman’s eyes are black. Crowley has a strange thought that she isn’t a woman at all. He is drunk in a dingy pub, mooning about an angel half a city away, and he hasn’t even managed a proper seduction. Some demon he is. He’ll have to rig the American election again at this rate to please Hell. He sighs. He hates election years in America. 

“Tell me about him,” the woman says, and Crowley is helpless under her gaze. He doesn’t remember ordering another drink. In fact, he doesn’t even remember the name of the pub at this point. How long has he been talking? 

“He thinks that dem--my sort of----that I’m incapable of love,” he says, ignoring the shake of his voice, the way the words catch in his damned throat. “I could never risk---he can’t---I’d never forgive myself if it was because of me. If he Fel--if he was hurt. Because of me.” Now that he’s started, he can’t stop. 

The image of the woman is flickering before him. Maybe it’s a trick of the bare light bulbs against his glasses. When she leans back to swallow the last of her drink, she looks almost grotesque, a wrinkled gargoyle in a bloodstained prom dress. He blinks and she’s crossing her legs, as beautiful as she was before, the simple red dress clean and smooth against her skin. 

“You love him,” she says, soft and low, the way you coo at a lost child in a Sainsburys, and Crowley shakes his head against the tricks of the lighting. He wants to deny it. He wants to leave. He wants Aziraphale. 

“Yes,” he answers her, just as soft.

The woman is moving closer to him. Her nails are filed into points, the black polish on them reflecting nothing as her hand drifts below the bartop. 

“It’s been yearsssss since I was sssssurprissed” she whispers, and Crowley is enthralled to see that her tongue is as forked as his in another form, her pupils as square as a goat’s as she leans into him while her hand trails up his thigh. Crowley tries to jerk back, trying to move away from her horrible goat-eyes, but her nails, no, her claws are holding him fast. “A demon and angel. The thingsssss you lot come up with.”

“How” he starts, and he needs to sober up now, needs his wits about him, but the woman just smiles mildly, like she’s greeting a neighbor she isn’t overly fond of, and her other hand grabs his jaw. It is not a gentle touch.

“The boy was just an antichrist. No one ever minds the articles of the thing, do they? The antichrist, an antichrist, it all just sounds like semantics until it’s staring you in the face.” Her voice is gravel under the wheels of a crashing car, how could he ever have found it lovely, he has to leave--

“You’re lucky I like you, sssserpent,” he can feel pricks of blood on his chin where she has him, can barely focus on her words through the ringing in his ears.

“Your love is yours,” she says, and that’s the last thing he remembers.

_______________________

Crowley tenses as he comes to full awareness, waiting for the unbearable cold to spread from his chest to his toes. The freezing ache of the Forsaken. A feeling he only forgets in Aziraphale’s divine warmth. It never comes. He stretches up, hands flexing underneath the plush pillows, and feels fully comfortable for the first time in over 6000 years. He is, frankly, downright toasty. 

It is all downhill from there. 

He jerks up at the memory from last night and topples onto the floor in his haste to make sure he is alone in the bed. He spins, eyes darting around the room, but the clothes on the floor are his alone, the sheets only disturbed on one side of the bed. 

He sighs in relief, turns, and sees himself in the mirror.

His eyes are hazel. The pupils black, circular, and narrow as pinpoints. His mouth falls open and his teeth are merely teeth. He does not have to focus on keeping them from narrowing into fangs, his corporation is comfortable and decidedly-mild looking, and Hell below, there is a peaceful feeling radiating from his chest. A shaking hand, with of all things, dirt under the fingernails, raises to his temple. Where a serpent should twine down before his ear, marking him, there is a gold staff. His staff. From Before. Before the--no, he does not think of it. Of how he used to ease, used to soothe his Brothers--no. None of that now.

The mark is coiled like the serpent, but there can be no mistaking that the staff of Raphael is back on his face. Meant to heal, not poison, to tend, shepherd, and calm. It is faintly glowing gold and making his non-yellow eyes look vaguely green. 

There is a phone on the bedside table. He does not allow himself to think. He dials. The number doesn’t even do him the dignity of ringing, just a low tone before a dour voice tells him the number is not in service. He slams the receiver down and dials again. And again. His shaking fingers aren’t wrong. He can’t dial the bookshop.

He stumbles out of the bedroom, unused to a body that doesn’t want to coil, a spine not meant to sway, and stops. His apartment, no, this apartment, not his, is full of light. The furniture is a tasteful black against the pristine walls. It would look cold except for plants practically forming a greenhouse around him. Shining, verdant green leaves turn to him as he walks down the hallway. Vines weave around a staircase that absolutely was not there before, and roses which would make the Queen jealous have the audacity to burst into bloom as he enters the kitchen, where, horror of horrors, a bloody apron is hanging on the sparkling white door. He picks it up. 

E D E N F L O R A L S is embossed in black letters. The material is soft with use and the straps dented where they would nestle into his back if he was to tie it on, which he certainly will not be doing. There are keys hanging above the apron. His Bently is white, which makes him shudder, but he can have his moment about that later. After he finds Aziraphale.


	2. The Spider of Eden

In Soho, a man who is not really a man (and maybe not a demon anymore, but Crowley doesn’t let his thoughts go there) stares uncomprehendingly at a tapestry in the window of EZRA FELL’S ODDS AND ENDS. 

The scene woven in the tapestry should be familiar. He should almost feel the sun-warmed wood dragging up his belly as he slithered to Eve, he should be able to hear the rustle of her curls as he brushed them back. But there is not a serpent in sight in the picture. He looks uncomprehendingly at the woven Eve, resplendent in the Garden light, her lovely black eyes boring into a glistening, white spider which is dangling a hairsbreadth above her right shoulder. Where his forked tongue should have been crooning into her lovely ear, a spindly, sharp appendage is arcing away from the spider’s body, gossamer strands tangling in Eve’s hair, as the creature gestures toward an apple. He lets out a very undemonic shiver. He’s always hated spiders. 

His hand drifts forward and runs down the red threads which make up the apple. No snake. No tempting. No sauntering vaguely downwards. He fights down the urge to laugh, or scream, or maybe let out a good old fashioned gnashing of teeth as he thinks of a line from an old American movie he helped finance, the one with the horrible munchkins, and Aziraphale would never let him live it down if he knew that Crowley’s first thought was that he wasn’t in Kansas a--

A hand closes on his shoulder and Crowley nearly topples backward as he is yanked none too gently away from the tapestry. 

“Now, now dear boy,” and God--Satan--whoever if his knees aren’t weak with relief at that prim voice, Aziraphale is here, he isn’t alone, he’s even still being lectured about not appreciating old art so things can’t be that bad, “if you touch without wearing gloves it will cause the pigment to degrade--”

Crowley turns his head, the idiotic smile he always has to fight down when he sees Aziraphale freely blooming on his face at the sight of the neatly manicured hand digging into his suit jacket, the tartan bowtie, the stunning blue of angelic eyes against a mop of shock-white hair which wants so badly to curl. 

“Aziraphale,” he says, and then he looks directly into his angel’s face. And shrieks. The eyes which he loves, the eyes which are too blue and beatific to be fully human, too mischievous to really be angelic, are wrong. Two pupils look at him out of each eye, too wide, still too blue, four pupils are narrowing in suspicion, arachnid--

This is the final straw. “What in the great blibbering FUCK” he starts to shout as the creature that looks like Aziraphale punches him squarely in the face and blackness overtakes him. 

________________________________

“Do forgive the punch, dear boy.”

Crowley sits up and touches his lip gingerly. Aziraphale--no, the other Aziraphale, is holding a cup of tea and looking at him speculatively. 

Aziraphale sips and continues as if Crowley has acknowledged him. “After all, the last time you snuck up on me shrieking was to spiritedly discorporate me and dump me in Themes.”

Crowley probes his lip and is surprised to find no soreness, no blood. 

“Ah, yes,” says the other Aziraphale. “I took care of that for you. As if I could forget how squeamish the Angel of Healing gets around a bit of blood.” Crowley can feel the bite of the words, so much more derisive than his Aziraphale. Despite the tone, this Aziraphale is looking at him with something close to concern. Not quite tenderness, but interest nonetheless. Like a lorry driver who ran over a cat and is nudging it with his toe to see if it will respond. He tries to figure out where to start.

“So quiet.” Aziraphale primly sets the teacup back in the saucer. “I suppose you’ve come to try and warn me of something again. How noble of you, Raphael. You angels are such a funny lot.”

And there it is. You angels. His lot. It should have occurred to him sooner. “No.” The eyes. Four black pupils across two blue irises, bluer still against alabaster skin and that blonde white hair, as white as the albino spider tempting on the tapestry which hangs in the storefront. “No,” Crowley breathes again, grabbing Aziraphale’s hands in his own before he’s aware he’s moved. The room is getting lighter and Crowley suddenly realizes it’s because of him, he’s glowing. 

Aziraphale looks at him curiously. 

“How--when did you--how long--when did you fall?” This is not where Crowley wanted to start.

Aziraphale narrows his eyes. Four cornflower blue irises eye him with suspicion. 

“Humor me,” croaks Crowley.

“I was assigned to guard the gate. I watched the humans. I talked to them. It seemed unfair to keep them from knowing the world. From knowing the truth.” He gestures to the books around him. “How could they truly love Her without knowing? Is love even love without a choice? Why would God claim to love something She left in the darkness?”

Crowley had heard Aziraphale murmur similar things on rare occasions, times when he was drunk, dark times when Crowley had sat up all night making sure Aziraphale’s corporation stayed breathing. The plagues of Egypt, early in their uneasy Arrangement. The men burning nuns to death in the Spanish Civil War. Outside the camps in Germany. Every time he had shushed him down, assured him it would all be better tomorrow, once even reaching into his mind to remove some of the memories. Crowley had Fallen for questioning. He had no intention of letting Aziraphale do the same. 

Well, he had had no intention. Because now Aziraphale was in front of him, strange eyes burning in the darkness, uncannily like the spider in the tapestry. The Spider of Eden. Fallen. Crowley has never cried, but he thinks he could give it a shot now. 

Aziraphale is watching him. This Aziraphale is stiller than Crowley has ever known. There is something predatory in the slow, deliberate way he perches on the chair, posture as comfortingly perfect as ever, yet with a tension in his shoulders that warns Crowley he could spring at any second. 

Aziraphale slowly tilts his head to the side. His neck goes slightly too far for a normal human’s. Crowley understands more why people flinch from him as he winds and weaves his corporation, now. 

“You are not Raphael.”

“No,” he agrees. Crowley feels trapped by hyper-focus of Aziraphale’s gaze. 

“So who are you? You’re still an angel. You look like Raphael. You have been in the company of a demon, who openly attacked you, for over an hour. And yet you have not tried to harm me.”

“I could never--” he starts, before cutting himself off, angry at how his panic has made him vulnerable. He exhales and firmly places his feet on the floor. “Crowley. Call me Crowley. I’m not Raphael anymore. At least where I come from.”

There is a soft thump behind him. He turns his head and sees that the sign for Ezra Fell’s Odds and Ends Emporium has now flipped to CLOSED. 

“I suppose you should start at the beginning, dear boy.”


	3. All Manner of Sins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel and a demon are sitting in a pawn shop in Soho.

An angel and a demon are sitting in a pawn shop in Soho. Crowley has talked so long that night has fallen. He cannot hide his relief that this-Aziraphlae has not thrown him into the street. Instead, three empty bottles of wine sit between them. 

Aziraphale stands so suddenly that Crowley jumps. He isn’t used to the fluidity of movement from Aziraphale yet, the way he moves from utter stillness so quickly. 

“Well,” says Aziraphale, turning to the kitchen for another bottle of wine. “There are stranger things in Hell and Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, I suppose. As long as you aren’t here to smite me, I can’t see why the Arrangement needs to change.” 

“Thank you,” Crowley says, not even noticing that in his wave of gratitude starlight breaks through the clouds outside and the trees up and down the street sprout little white flowers. He stands and picks up one of the empty bottles. “Aziraphale, Angel, thank you for trusting m-” 

He really isn’t used to Aziraphale’s new speed. His back hits the wall and he feels his head bounce a little, blinking at four electric blue irises now inches from his face. 

“Watch your tongue, dear boy” the other Aziraphale whispers, the cold creep of the words sending shivers up his spine as the press of a body against his does something else entirely, “or I’ll rip it out.” 

Crowley rubs his arms where Aziraphale’s fingers dug into them as Aziraphale stalks to the window to peer outside. “My side is going to be suspicious if there is a sudden outpouring of angelic grace surrounding my headquarters.” The smile on his face as Aziraphale turns to face him is not reassuring in the least. Crowley feels like a fly in a silken trap as Aziraphale advances back on him. “I have worked very hard for what I have here. To be the only agent of Hell allowed Above. And I have no intention of letting six thousand years of hard work be lost because an Archangel wants to go slumming.” 

Crowley swallows. “It’s not like that-”

And blast if he hasn’t been able to get a full sentence out without being cut off. Aziraphale is flush against him now. The shelves push into his back as Aziraphale puts his hands on either side of his head and leans in, thigh on thigh, chest on chest. 

Aziraphale’s voice is soft. There’s no way he can miss how Crowley’s treacherous body is responding. He goes up on his tiptoes, deliberately pressing their hips together to whisper in Crowley’s ear. 

“Don’t ever call me Angel again.”

_____________________________________

Crowley explores the shop in the days to come. Aziraphale watches him wearily, in between dealing with customers. If Crowley ever needed a reminder that this was not his world, not his body, not his angel, it’s that the bookshop--well, pawn shop--is full of customers. Aziraphale moves between groups of people, some obvious regulars, pushing trinkets into people’s hands or steering them away from items he’s clearly decided to never sell. 

There is a bulletin board beside the tapestry. Crowley skims the events it advertises: lectures from a scientist about evolution, a philosophy professor refuting Pascal’s Wager in a series called “The Ethics of Atheism,” and a poetry slam raising money for a local abortion fund. The shop has an open area near the window that must be for events. 

Crowley does not turn his head as Aziraphale finishes with the customers and comes to stand beside him.

“See anything you like? I’m particularly fond of the poetry slams.” Aziraphale is smirking, just a little, as though he expects Crowley to give him a lecture. 

Never one to disappoint, Crowley narrows his eyes, and rips off an advert with a helpline number for LGBTQ youth hiding from their fundamentalist parents. “You’re a pawn shop.”

Aziraphale shrugs. “I’m sowing doubt among the faithful,” he says, moving a flyer about an Ayn Rand reading group to the front of the chaotic board. He takes the paper with the number from Crowley’s hand and miracles it back to the flyer with a tsk. “I suppose you know,” he continues, moving to put a secondhand biography of Lord Byron in the window display, “that demons can sense all of the sinful impulses floating around, former demon that you claim to be and all, Not-Raphael.”

“Crowley,” says Crowley, for at least the fifth time in twenty minutes. Aziraphale has ushered out the last customer, a tetchy boy with green hair, and turns the sign to “CLOSED.” Aziraphale has had him drinking something called Pappy Van Winkle since early afternoon, which apparently he stole an entire truck of from the States. He sinks into a tattered armchair. 

“I feel all manner of sins,” continues Aziraphale, like Crowley hasn’t spoken. “Liars and thieves--it’s how I knew you were telling the truth earlier, or at least the truth you believe, gluttony and wrath and all manner of blasphemy.” 

“Er, right, yeah, sins and whatnot,” says Crowley, at a loss for why Aziraphale is telling him this. He has had quite a lot to drink. It is still not enough to get used to demon Aziraphale, who is now standing directly in front of the chair Crowley is leaning back on. 

“Everything.” Aziraphale clearly has a point and Crowley is not getting it. He is staring down at Crowley, all four pupils are just pinpricks, and they’re the same color of blue as his Aziraphale’s eyes, the ones he’s never been allowed to stare at for this long--

“Crowley.” The use of his actual name for the first time runs down Crowley’s spine. Aziraphale bends low and puts his hands on either side of the armchair. Tartan, of course. Crowley swallows. 

Aziraphale is so close that the blue of his eyes is all Crowley can see. “Do you know what the most common emotion I feel is? The one pouring off you since you found this shop?”

Before he can answer, Aziraphale leans forward until his lips are outside Crowley’s ear. His broad shoulders press against Crowley’s chest. This Aziraphale even uses the same cologne, and his head is swimming, he should sober up--

“Lust” says Aziraphale, his lips just brushing the soft shell of Crowley’s ear. “You must miss me. The other me.”

“Look, it isn’t like that,” Crowley says, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice, “we don’t--the other you--we’ve never--” and he cuts off as Aziraphale’s lips settle against the staff running down his cheek. 

“I have wanted you since you let me sneak out of the Garden,” murmurs Aziraphale, now moving down to Crowley’s neck. “Since I saw you sneaking children onto the Ark. Since you made Leah fruitful.” Crowley cannot breathe. He cannot speak. This is everything he wanted his Aziraphale to say. He would have had him on the Garden wall. 

Crowley makes a low noise, embarrassingly involuntarily, as Aziraphale pulls away to stare at him. “Say you don’t want this and I’ll stop. Say you don’t want him, or only him, say you’re really my Raphael and this is an elaborate attempt at smiting me--”

Crowley cuts him off by running his hand up the back of Aziraphale’s neck. He has only touched his Aziraphale’s hair once, brushing a leaf out of it in Rome, and he has thought about the brush of those curls ever since. Finally, Aziraphale looks unsure, unsettled, with the quizzical forehead wrinkle that Crowley has longed to smooth away and it is too much for him. 

Standing up so quickly nearly overbalances Aziraphale, and Crowley grabs his biceps to steady him. Aziraphale’s legs are still spread from leaning over him, and now it’s Crowley’s turn to tower. His leg grinds into Aziraphale, who swallows, and Crowley lazily leans down to feel the press of his Adam’s apple against his lips. He closes his eyes. Surely now is the time he’ll be jerked back, wake up, find himself on the bookshop’s couch--

But Aziraphale’s hands are on his waist. The touch is soft, just like his curls in Crowley’s imagination, and Crowley closes his eyes and thinks of his flat. He can tell that Aziraphale is unsure of where he’s taken them and he doesn't give Aziraphale time to get his bearings, just shoves him onto the bed, every fantasy he’s ever had can’t compare to this, and he is lost as the golden light from his window turns dark and light again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pappy Van Winkle is an expensive, rare bourbon. Someone did steal a ton of it a few years ago. I like to imagine it's the kind of thing a few occult beings might get up to.


	4. House Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is a bastard. Crowley is smitten. Heaven and Hell are on the move.

Crowley does the only thing he can think of while he tries to figure out what to do. One month passes, then two, then four, then six without answers. He grows and sells flowers. His business is thriving, but he is selective with his clientele. He drives the Bentley too fast down London streets. He goes to lunch with Aziraphale. 

“Oh my,” says the hostess, gaping a little, “your eyes---”

“Twin I absorbed in the womb,” says Aziraphale promptly as the woman turns scarlet, “very tragic for my mother since it didn’t happen until about eight months in--”

Crowley grimaces and shoves him inside, unable to stop a smile at the woman’s discomfort. And if it stings just slightly to know that his Aziraphale would be a bastard but never that blatantly, would never hold his hand so boldly, would never shove him into a corner booth in front of a family with both an elderly man and a pregnant woman who had been waiting much longer, well, Crowley has endured much worse pain. 

He is happy. 

He should have known it would not last. 

He is walking into the pawnshop, a big, embarrassingly sappy bunch of roses in his hands, when he is yanked behind a shelf. 

“Mr. Fell said you can’t be here.” The youth can’t be more than twenty, with bizarre green hair and gauges in his ears. It’s an aesthetic Crowley would have appreciated in another life.

“What?” says Crowley, and the boy has the gumption to try and cover his mouth. Crowley steps on his foot.

“Ouch!” The boy looks betrayed and glares at Crowley. “I’m doing you a favor,” he hisses, “you don’t want to mess with those men who come for Mr. Fell. He says to come back tomorrow.”

“What men?” Crowley drops the flowers. If they know what’s good for them, they won’t show it. He heals the boy’s toe without a second thought. “What men? Who comes for Mr. Fell?” The boy is rolling his ankle and looking surprised. Crowley has to stop himself from shaking him.

“They don’t have a schedule, but maybe every few months or so. Mr. Fell set up a system for when they come--we round everyone up and get them out and keep everyone away from the shop. Real creepy guys. We can usually smell them before we see them. I think one even wears a dead frog.”

Crowley turns away and goes to rush down the aisle. Maybe if he’s quiet he can sneak up on them. He’s reaching for his staff and concentrating on the right moment to bring forth his wings, he can’t leave Aziraphale alone, when the youth has the audacity to grab for him the second time.

“He meant it,” says the boy. “He’ll be okay. He said to tell you that these aren’t yours, anymore. That you’d know what it meant.”

Crowley rolls his neck. He exhales hard through his nose. “Okay,” he says, and the kid looks relieved, “okay. But I’m not leaving.” The boy shrugs, presses a finger to his lips, and slips away behind the shelves. 

Crowley begins to slowly creep toward the back of the shop. He can hear voices, but not clearly, and edges as close as he dares. One of the voices is gratingly familiar. Hastur. A low croak tells him that Ligur is there, too. 

“And what’s that smell, eh? Smells holy,” says Ligur. 

Hastur inhales with a dramatic sniff that even Crowley can hear. “Is that why you were late letting us in? Slacking off? Slumming?”

Aziraphale’s voice is low but frighteningly cold. Colder than Crowley has ever heard it. 

“And what is it you have done? Tempted a priest? I have turned one hundred men away from the priesthood.” There is a sudden slam and Crowley jumps, and from the croaking behind the door, Ligur must have too as Aziraphlae rounds on him. 

“And you. A politician? Did he see a pretty woman in a sundress, too?” Aziraphale scoffs. “I have made men doubt the very premise of law and order. More marriages have crumbled in this very shop than humans that you know are alive. Women walk in as wives and exit as individuals, free of their sexual bondage, and their daughters will empty more pews than you can fathom. Do you really think you are more favored than me? When the last woman you tempted had to write her name in a black leather book in some woods?”

“You may claim to damn,” snarls Hastur, but Aziraphale cuts him off.

“No.” Darkness is seeping out from under the door, oily and grotesque, inching lava-slow toward the bookshelf where Crowley crouches. He can feel the build-up of demonic power. 

Aziraphale laughs. Crowley never knew he could dislike the sound. “I save them. I offer the fruit of knowledge and reap their souls tenfold in return. Now, this meeting is done. Do not come here before our scheduled time again unless you think our Dark Lord would be happy to hear about the wasted time you have caused me.” Crowley covers his eyes and ducks as the tar-like substance inching towards him suddenly glows red-hot and surges back to cover the door. There is a crack and a flash, and then silence. Crowley waits. His corporation’s heart beats twice. When he hears nothing else, he lunges for the door. 

Aziraphale is standing in front of a table, still, and he holds up his hand, palm out, to Crowley. He is eyeing two black scorch marks on the shop floor, his shoulders taut, mouth drawn. Crowley waits in the doorframe. Aziraphale blinks, then sighs, and slowly lowers his hand. Crowley takes it as an invitation and crosses to him. 

“They’re gone,” says Aziraphale, rubbing his temples, exhaustion written across his face. “But they’re getting smarter. I was so afraid that we wouldn’t be able to warn you in time.” Crowley wraps his arms around him, pressing Aziraphale’s head to his chest, a sensation he luxuriates in even after months of being able to touch his ang--touch Azirapahle freely. 

Crowley means to say something comforting, suave and soothing, but instead blurts out “you report directly to Lucifer?”

Aziraphale blinks up at him. He smirks. “No, but it doesn’t hurt that they think I do.”

“You are such a bastard sometimes,” says Crowley, and is rewarded with a genuine laugh. “Let me take you back to mine” he whispers, breathing in the sweet smell of Aziraphale’s hair. “We can rest, get away from this.”

“I hate sleeping,” says Aziraphale, petulantly. 

“Who said anything about sleeping?” Crowley may be an angel again, but he is, first and foremost, a lecher. 

Aziraphale swats his arm, but Crowley knows he will give in. He hears a soft noise at the door and turns to see the green-haired boy from earlier, fiddling nervously with a gauge in his ear, blushing.

“Jacob,” says Aziraphale, pushing Crowley away and walking toward him. “Did everyone get out alright?”

“Yeah, we’re all good Mr. Fell.” He switches from adjusting his gauge to fiddling with this sleeve, evidently working up the nerve for something. “Everyone else is gone and I can lock up here. So you can go. Go home. With your boyfriend. Partner. Friend. You all can go home.” The blush is still there, but he raises his chin defiantly.

“Well you heard the man,” says Crowley, miracling a crisp £50 note into the boy’s wallet. Aziraphale is going to try and protest, but Crowley slings an arm around his shoulders and starts maneuvering him out the door, where a lovely and legal parking spot has suddenly appeared for the Bentley. 

Much later, Crowley reclines against the headboard while Aziraphale rests against his chest, asleep despite his earlier protestations. Using that much occult energy never comes without a price. Aziraphale’s exhaustion had made him unusually pliant, and Crowley smiles as he thinks about the goosebumps that had risen as Crowley ran his fingers up Aziraphale’s body, the little shivers as he took off his shirt, the moans as Crowley pulled the tension from his body. Being the angel of healing had its advantages. 

Aziraphale begins to stir. One eye cracks open and Crowley smiles at the fuzzy look in them. Aziraphale yawns and Crowley notices that in his tiredness his incisors are long and fanged. With his double irised eyes and venomous mouth, he should be quite creepy. Instead, the softness in his face makes Crowley’s stomach swoop. 

“Go back to sleep, foul fiend” he whispers. Aziraphale looks at him reproachfully, but his eyes close all the same. Crowley slides his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair and the smile fades from his face. If it was time for Aziraphale to hear from Hell, a visit from Heaven for him can’t be far behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment! It's been incredibly encouraging and helpful as this is my first time sharing my writing. I'm working this weekend, but I'll be back early next week with another update!


	5. The Big One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit from an archangel, the birth of an antichrist, and the hatching of a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: minor mention of infertility in a side character. Not recurring.

Crowley loathed Hell’s system of shoving information directly into his brain, but reaching down to snip a thorn off a plant and straightening up to find the Archangel Gabriel beaming at him might be considerably worse. 

“Raphael, Brother.” Gabriel holds open his arms. Crowley thinks that someone should tell him that humans need to blink regularly. 

“Gabriel.” Crowley thinks back to his old life. What was it that Aziraphale used to say about the other angels? He was always quiet and reserved when they came up. Crowley hated to see him that way so he usually never mentioned it. He stiffens and tries to copy the set of Aziraphale’s shoulders. “To what do I owe the honor?” Despite his efforts, he can’t help the hint of snideness that slips into his voice. 

“We’ve noticed the change in your miracles. It seems you have some new priorities.” Crowley looks at where Gabriel is standing. He won’t be able to dodge him and get out the door, but there’s a window to his left he could dive for. Gabriel is running one finger down a fern leaf and seemingly ignoring him. It must be a diversionary tactic. He wonders if Gabriel came alone or if there’s a trap waiting for him outside. 

“Uh, yes, I can explain that,” starts Crowley, at the same time that Gabriel says “we’re glad that you’ve finally come to your senses.” Crowley freezes. Gabriel laughs. 

“No need to explain, Brother. We all become disillusioned with them eventually. You held out longer than most of us.” 

“Right, disillusioned,” says Crowley. He adjusts one of the plants on the countertop to stall. 

“We’ve been telling you for years that all of this individual involvement was a waste of labor. We’re just here to keep an eye on the Enemy. Stop them from making too much headway.”

Crowley sneers. “And here I thought I was on Earth to help. My mistake.” 

He expects anger, but Gabriel is still smiling. “I prefer to think of it as tacit non-intervention.”

“Except for all the smitings,” says Crowley.

“Yes! Exactly.” Gabriel is watching him closely. Crowley must still look skeptical because Gabriel sighs and opens the shop door. “Walk with me.” Crowley has no choice but to follow. 

“Look at them,” says Gabriel, gesturing broadly and scowling. “Consuming gross matter, ruining their corporations, obsessed with their material objects while their fellow man starves.” Despite the speech, he looks with distaste at a man sitting on the sidewalk with his head bowed, a paper cup with a few coins sitting sadly in front of him. 

Gabriel slows to a stop, still talking about the pitfalls of man, of his disgust with humanity. Crowley can’t face looking at him, so he turns to the buildings instead. 

They’ve stopped in front of a church. A priest is standing on the steps holding a pudgy baby, a man and a woman on either side of him. The man is wiping a tear from his eye, beaming, and the woman smoothes down her skirt and takes the baby’s hand. The priest touches her shoulder and all three of them face down the steps to have their picture taken. Crowley looks into them, really looks, and sees. Sleepless nights, beeping monitors. The man sitting at a table, bills spread out in front of him, his head in his hands. The woman stifling a sob in the bathroom as she pinches her stomach and pushes a needle in. Her husband kissing the bruises that spring up around the injection sites. A stillbirth. Leaving a Christmas dinner early after fake smiling through another pregnancy announcement. And finally, finally two faint blue lines on a stick, cautious hope, the man’s stunned face as he holds his daughter in his arms for the first time - 

Gabriel grabs his arm and Crowley is jerked back to the present. “I am glad that you finally see them as they are, Raphael. Ants before the Almighty. It has been too long since Sodom and Gomorrah. Since the flood. But our time is coming. We will bring down our Holy Wrath and cleanse this world.”

“What?” says Crowley, forgetting his smug facade. 

Gabriel misinterprets Crowley’s horror for hope. “Yes, Brother,” he says, still not blinking enough. “Our spies tell us that it is time. The Antichrist will be born within the month.”

“Where,” says Crowley. He hopes the flatness of his voice hides how his hands have begun to shake. 

Gabriel frowns as he watches the family on the church steps. “That’s what we’re hoping you can find out. Now that you’ve stopped trifling in these human affairs and devoted yourself to our cause thwarting the enemy, you can report when he makes the move.”

“Thwarting,” says Crowley. He wonders if Gabriel has noticed his newfound monosyllabism. 

“Our scouting units have reported that you have devoted yourself to tracking his every move. He barely leaves his headquarters without you on his heels. We’re thrilled with your new efforts to foil the Spider.” Reporting units. Crowley can’t believe he never figured it out before. No wonder Aziraphale was always so cautious, so tense until they were indoors, always on the lookout for prying eyes. How could he not have known?

Gabriel is looking at him expectantly. Crowley has to say something. He clears his throat. “I’ll keep an eye out. Watch him. Be ready.” Gabriel gives him one last smile, the kind that doesn’t change the upper half of his face at all, claps him on the shoulder, and vanishes. 

Crowley glances over his shoulder. Now the parents are taking the photo while the baby wiggles in the arms of another woman. He spends a few more minutes standing and watching while people bump into him and scowl at him for standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Partly because he can, and partly to spite Gabriel, he snaps his fingers. When the couple gets home, they will find a letter from the hospital explaining that the cost of their IVF cycle was miscalculated and a large refund check is on its way. He heads back to the shop to call Aziraphale and tell him what he knows.

_______________________

The call does not go well. 

Crowley pretends to be proud, but it’s a masquerade that has never held up where Aziraphale is concerned. It only takes him a few minutes to start begging. By the end of the call, he is past begging and on to pleading. 

“Just, refuse them, please.” Crowley has the receiver in one hand and a tumbler of bourbon in the other. 

“What utter nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense!” Crowley sits the bourbon glass down. “Get someone else to do it, or take the kid and lose it, or take it to the wrong place, just do something.” He knows how desperate he must sound. He doesn't care. 

“Look, Raphael,” starts Aziraphale. 

“For Satan’s sake, it’s Crowley!”

“It doesn’t matter who you were before!” Crowley has never heard Aziraphale shout. Aziraphale takes a few ragged breaths before he continues, softer this time. “Crowley. You’re an angel now. An archangel. And I’m a demon. We’re hereditary enemies. We’re lucky to have had the time we did.” 

“This can’t be the end.”

Aziraphale is so quiet that Crowley thinks he might have put down the phone and stormed off. Finally, Aziraphale sighs. “We’ll figure out something,” he says, and the line goes dead. 

Crowley exhales. He stands and walks to the window and looks out over the city. Something from the scene outside the church earlier is niggling in his brain. The pudgy baby looking like a cake topper in a ridiculous white gown. The parents, beaming and hugging each other, watching another man and woman wrangle the baby on the church steps. Would this antichrist look like that? Would he have parents and people who loved him? Could he be baptized? 

Crowley thinks about the pride on the parent's faces as they held up the camera. How one chubby hand had worked free of the oversized baptism outfit and waved wildly until the dark-haired woman caught it, kissed the tiny clenched fist, and whispered: “now be nice to your godmother or I’ll never tell you where your Mum keeps the good vodka when you’re a teenager.” The mother had shrieked with laughter and even the priest had to stifle a smile. Crowley drops his hands away from the window. He takes two steps back. That’s it. 

“Godparents,” he breathes. He can’t stop what is to come. But since Aziraphale won’t directly stand against Hell, this might be the next best thing. 

_______________________

Aziraphale was disorganized, careless, and relied entirely on bits of feral paper scattered around the shop as a bookkeeping system. Unfortunately, despite the chaos of his general life, he is meticulous with his orders. 

“Ohhhh, does he have little hoofsie woofies?” coos one of the Nuns, leaning in to get a better look at the basket. “I can take him from here.”

“I’ll take him straight to the room, if you please.” Aziraphale pulls the basket out of her reach. “Let’s get on with it. I will take those biscuits, though.”

In another world, perhaps there is a mix-up. Perhaps an antichrist ends up with a kindly British family, with a mother who cuts the crust off of toast and a father who spins bedtime stories and beams with pride at football matches. But that world is not this one. 

Warlock Dowling is ten years old. He sits with Gardener and watches a spider eat a fly and learns that only the strongest and most ruthless survive, something Father calls “Trickle Down Economics.” Nanny tells him that even though you might end up in a web, there are still ways for the weak to have a fulfilling and good life. However, he mostly runs wild through the yard, staining his clothes and having chocolate before dinner, because Nanny always carries it in her pockets for Gardener. Nanny sits on a picnic blanket and laughs while Gardener trims the hedges. She scolds him for scorching the roses and over-watering the orchids, even though somehow the lawn is always perfect. Nanny and Gardener take strolls to admire the flowers in the sunlight and seem surprised when they remember that Warlock is there at all. Still, he’s happiest to be outside with their laughter, rather than inside with his Father’s loud demands and his Mother’s acrid bitterness. 

Years pass in this haze. Warlock spends less time in the yard and more time with his friends. They make an app that robocalls old age pensioners and steals their bank numbers, set fire to a playground swing, and once cause an international incident by stealing Father’s phone and texting “negotiations collapsed, prepare missiles” to every contact in it. Still, he goes to see Nanny and Gardener nearly every night, and it is secretly the best part of his day. 

“Thirteen is a big age,” says Nanny. “Is there anything else that you want for your birthday?”

Warlock scuffs his foot against the table leg. He knows that Nanny is the one who picks out the presents his parents give him. His presents from her are the only ones that are ever a surprise. 

“I want a dog,” he says, and misreading the suddenly grim expressions on Nanny and Gardener’s faces as doubt in him, he quickly continues. “I know it’s a lot of work and Mom and Dad say no but I promise I would take care of it and go for walks and I could share my bed--”

Gardener puts a hand on Nanny’s shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll get a dog, Warlock. You’re ready.” He thinks that Nanny looks sad, for a second, but the way her eyes cut to Gardener makes it hard to tell. Gardener clears his throat. “It’s important to be thinking of a name.”

Warlock swallows the piece of chocolate Nanny pretended not to notice him stealing from her pocket. He looks up at Gardener. “Like how you said that I should never learn people’s names but just call them by their position so I’d always know how they’re useful to me?”

Nanny smiles a little at that. “Maybe you could promise me something, Warlock.”

“Anything, Nanny,” says the boy. He loves her for being the only steady presence in the house. 

“When you get your dog, promise to hold off naming him for a week.”

“Crowley,” hisses Gardener, and Warlock frowns in confusion. 

Nanny holds up a hand to Gardener. “Names are important, Warlock. You want to make sure you get this one right. Dogs only have one true name. Just one week, for me, child.”

“Sure,” he says. He plans to start telling them all the names he already has picked out, but Nanny swoops in and hugs him before he can start.

Gardener is wiping a hand under the dark glasses he says he has to wear because working outside so much hurt his eyes. Warlock turns to him after letting go of Nanny. He wants Gardener to be happy, too. “I asked for chocolate devil’s cake for the party because you said it’s your favorite,” he offers. 

Gardener laughs, which always makes Nanny laugh and beam at him, and sometimes even glow. Turning thirteen won’t be so bad. He knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warlock running wild so Nanny and Gardener can flirt is a scene from Speremint's "Go Feral" comic.


	6. Everything I Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel and an antichrist are sitting in a flower shop. 
> 
> They thought they had more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Body Horror in the last section.

Despite everything, Warlock keeps his promise. They have one week before Warlock names the Hellhound and comes into his true power. One week before the apocalypse begins in earnest. 

It’s not a week that Crowley is going to let go to waste. 

“Alpha Centauri,” he says, gesturing wildly at the ceiling of the pawnshop, “no one would ever find us, or Saturn, or I bet the Sombrero Galaxy is nice this time of year!” Aziraphale doesn’t even deign to turn around, but Crowley stays on his heels as he storms around the pawnshop, anyway. 

Later, Aziraphale tries to ignore him in bed, a black sheet pulled up to his chest, a battered copy of “The Lectures of Robert G. Ingersoll” clenched in his hands. Crowley is undeterred. 

“We just get in the car, and we go. I’ll pack anything you want. Crepes, books, your giant wall of snuff boxes, I’ll fold the pawnshop into a matchbox if you can’t overcome your hoarding, just say the word and it goes.” Aziraphale’s eyes are unmoving on the book and he hasn’t turned a page in minutes. Still, he doesn’t say a word. 

The next day dawns so beautiful that Crowley feels like it’s mocking him. The streets are packed with people enjoying the London spring, laughing and smiling on the bright streets. Like cows to the slaughter. He turns away from the pawnshop window and watches Aziraphale sell a man a jewelry box that is almost certainly cursed. The man had tried to grope the homeless woman who Aziraphale lets sleep on the shopfront, so Crowley can’t say he really cares. Next, a young woman carefully lays a pair of earrings on the counter. She looks like she has been crying. “They were my mother’s,” she says, letting one fingertip lightly brush them. She juts out her jaw and wipes her eyes impatiently. “I won’t take less than fifty for them.” She talks tough, but one hand digs into her elbow hard enough to leave marks. She’s hungry. Aziraphale hums. Crowley turns away, knowing that woman will leave with enough money for groceries for her and her family for at least two months. He learned long ago that Aziraphale deals in emotional value. 

Crowley goes to the backroom, nodding at Jacob along the way, and waits. He knows Aziraphale will have to come back here eventually. When he hears the door open, he forces himself to stay quiet, waiting until Aziraphale’s footsteps stop at the table. Only then does he turn around. 

“I know you don’t want to hear me, Fiend,” he says, as Aziraphale lets one corner of his mouth raise up at the affection in the name. “And I don’t pretend to understand how you can just keep on like nothing is happening. But Aziraphale, please, you have to listen.” Before Aziraphale can respond, or worse, walk away again, Crowley grabs his hands. He pulls Aziraphale close to him, feeling the demon resist at first, then give in and let himself step closer. Crowley wraps his arms around him and lowers his head. 

“You know who I am, now. You know what I can do.” He sinks to his knees in front of Aziraphale. “Please,” he says, trying to let his face show everything he feels. “This war doesn’t have to touch us. Not if you’ll trust me.”

“Trust you? Do you think that’s what this is about?” Aziraphale’s eyes are blazing. It’s the first time he’s spoken to Crowley in days. 

“I am **damned** , Crowley! We all know that Hell will lose this war. Hell would kill me for a traitor as quickly as Heaven would as an enemy. There is nowhere to run where they can’t follow.” His voice breaks a little, at the end, belying his anger. His fingertips brush down Crowley’s cheek, lightly, until they rest under his jaw. 

Aziraphale lightly tilts Crowley’s head up. “I am a minor demon who has been lucky to stay out of Hell for as long as I have. I am not you, Crowley. The other archangels would never dare to harm you, even when they don’t agree with you. You can choose to sit out this war. I don’t have that luxury. No,” he says, anticipating Crowley’s rebuttal, “not even with you. The other angels might never dare to touch you, but we both know they would never hesitate to kill me. And to make you collateral damage when they find you sheltering the enemy.” Aziraphale’s hand moves back to his cheek. The touch is so tender it stings. “Why can you not see how lucky we have been? I want to enjoy the time we have left in the world we both love.”

Crowley lets his head fall to Aziraphale’s thigh. His hands rise to Aziraphale’s hips. He knows his fingers are pressing hard enough to leave bruises, but Aziraphale’s hand is still soft on his cheek. “Okay,” he breathes, looking up at the raw emotion on Aziraphale’s face, so guarded lately, so open to him now. “Okay.” 

After he has miracled the dirt off his knees and left Aziraphale hazy and mussed and stumbling back to the shop counter, he walks down the street in the opposite direction of Eden Florals. He told Aziraphale he needed to check on his plants and wrap up some orders. It should buy him a few hours, at least. Despite what he told Aziraphale, he has no intention of giving up. 

Instead, he scours the city in earnest. He sits in every seedy pub, trawls through disgusting clubs, and breaks into every condemned house for miles around. When he first told Aziraphale the story of how he ended up here, of how he really wasn’t Raphael, he could tell that Aziraphale doubted that it was his encounter with the woman at the bar that caused it. Occult energies cause all sorts of misfires when they move from the ethereal to the physical plane, he said. After months of not seeing her, Crowley had put it out of his mind. But now, she’s his only hope. 

Days pass. She is nowhere to be found. Maybe Aziraphale was right. Two days until the Hellhound is named, Crowley has half decided to just grab Aziraphale and disappear with him to the stars, protests be damned. He knows what Hell is like and he will not let them have Aziraphale. He flexes his fingers and thinks about the power of the staff in his hand. The power of angels. The endless abundance of Her Will, how he can pull miracles from Her that would have knocked him out for a century as a demon. 

He is stronger than ever before and twice as ruthless now that he has Aziraphale. If he can get Aziraphale away from Hell, he can keep him safe from Heaven. If he can’t persuade Azirapahle to run, he’ll take him by force. The thought makes him sick. 

But 31 hours before the apocalypse, he finds an antichrist sitting in his flower shop. 

Crowley is tired. He searches the city at night while Aziraphale sleeps and whenever he can slip away during the day. He has been through every zone in London and even some of the villages outside the city bounds. His own flower shop is, quite literally, the last place he looks. 

He takes off his coat and doesn’t bother to hang it up. Water drips onto the floor. “I knew you were real.”

One red-lacquered nail brushes down the leaf of an orchid. It immediately withers, turns black, and collapses into a pile of ashes on the countertop. “In the flesh,” she says, with a voice too lovely for a mortal woman. She tosses her hair over her shoulder and turns to face him. A crisp white button-down shirt is tucked neatly into a pair of tweed trousers. The look is sleek and effortless, a chic businesswoman out to lunch. Still, it is unmistakably the seductress from the bar, something he knew even before spotting the red heels on her feet. 

“I hear I’m about to become a big sister,” she says blithely, sliding off the stool and sauntering around the shop. “But I imagine you haven’t been hunting me to congratulate me.”

“I’m not hunting you at all,” responds Crowley, evenly. He is careful not to make any sudden moves, only edging slightly to the right to keep her in his sight and to make sure the workbench stays between them. “I only have a few questions.”

“Is that right?” She smirks at the way Crowley moves when she does, the slow and deliberate circle they’re making around the workbench. “And here I thought you’d be grateful. That at least I would get a thank you. Are you not happy with my little gift? Or is he still not letting you fuck him?” She lets the word “fuck” roll around in her mouth before popping the k obscenely. 

“I’m not here to talk about that,” he snarls, defensive as always where Aziraphale is concerned.

“Oh, but I am. I’ve kept an eye on you, Demon. Did I not give you everything you wanted? Am I not a benevolent Mistress?” She spreads her arms wide and leers. 

“What I wanted?” Crowley leans forward across the counter, heedless. “I wanted him not to Fall! I wanted him safe, and whole, and away from Hell. You threw him to the wolves.”

“I gave you years! An entire lifetime that you would have lost because of your cowardice. Because of me, you will be together at the end of the world. Your insignificant lives will end hand-in-hand. You should be on your knees with gratitude to me.” She stops moving. They have made an entire circle around the table. “But since that’s obviously not happening, tell me then, Demon, what else do you want from me?”

Crowley swallows. “I want you to stop the apocalypse.”

Silence. Then, one of the two antichrists on Earth is laughing so hard that she has to sit down, dropping gracefully onto the barstool. “Alright, Crowley.” She spreads her legs wide and leans back in the chair. “Tell me what I should do.”

“I just did.”

“No. Tell me step by step what you want to happen, here. Right now. Tell me all the ways out of this that a little lowly antichrist can’t see, Archangel Raphael.” She drags out the end of his name, mocking him. 

“Can’t you, er, talk to him?” He’s aware of how stupid this sounds, but he hadn’t expected to be put on the spot so soon. 

“I’m not much of a daddy’s girl.” She hops off the stool and sighs. “Look. I’m not pleased about this either. But you and I, we had a good run. Better than we should have got. Maybe I’ll see you around Hell sometime.” She winks at him, condescendingly, and turns to leave. 

Crowley takes a deep breath. Trying to trap an antichrist is the worst idea he’s had in his whole life, and he invented parachute pants. But he’s out of options. As soon as her back is turned, he reaches just out of this reality. His wings, white and resplendent, whoosh into being as he swings his staff down in a dramatic arc. 

For a second, she is completely frozen, one hand reaching for the door. He has just enough time to dive as she shatters the spell, whirling around, somehow more beautiful than before. 

“You fool,” she hisses. “You complete and utter tit.” Crowley thinks they could have been friends in another life. Not enough people have enough vitriol make the word “tit” an actual threat. He admires that in a woman. 

He can feel the build-up of energy around him, humming throughout the shop, the plants vibrating on the shelves. He looks over the counter as she raises her arms. The crisp suit is melting off of her body, her skin darkening, and Hell if her hair hasn’t turned into literal snakes. He might have overestimated himself. She grins at him and prepares to call down her wrath. 

Instead, the door hits her squarely in the back of the head and she falls as someone sprints into his shop. 

_______________________  
At first, he had seemed like any other customer. A slight man, shockingly handsome, with high cheekbones and long pale hair, impeccably dressed, and staring curiously into the shop window. 

“Posh fuck,” mutters Jacob, glancing at him. 

Aziraphale is inclined to agree but keeps an eye on him anyway. Something about his movements are too stiff, like his skin is a size too tight. Aziraphale tries to think of who the royal family is now. Maybe one of them has come to make a deal with him. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Outside, the man turns, and his profile is as striking as he was head-on. He walks forward, and Aziraphale thinks he’s going to walk past, but he stops at the door and graciously swings it wide, gesturing to a woman to enter before him. He even bows. His long hair slides over his shoulders as he tilts his head down, and the woman giggles, a little, color rising in her cheeks. Aziraphale smirks down at a snuff-box he’s been cleaning and makes a mental note to claim credit for inspiring the sin of lust, later. 

Then the woman screams. 

It’s cut off abruptly, as though someone has clicked mute during a violent movie, and Aziraphale jerks his head up. 

The man is still bent over, one leg behind the other, one hand holding open the door while the other gallantly motions the woman through. But his spine is _wrong_. There’s a slight dip of his hips where his lower back is, but then his back curves too far up, and human spines don’t have ridges that stick out like that, almost like spikes through the back of his well-cut suit, before disappearing into the low dip of his shoulders. He should be facing the ground to hold his shoulders that low, but his neck is raised straight up at an impossible angle, and he is grinning at the woman with the mouth of a feral wolf. Spittle drips off his chin as his jaw slowly drops open, too far, too far for a human skeleton, and his cheek skin splits apart as the bone completely separates and hangs, swaying sickeningly by a few threads of skin, just in front of his chest. 

The woman falls to her knees and vomits. The thing outside his shop tilts its head to the side until Aziraphale is looking at its scalp. Two bloody lumps are forming there, getting bigger before his eyes, and as the first bone-white peak rises through the blond hair he realizes that they are horns. The thing flicks its hand and the woman scrambles to her feet and runs. It watches her go. 

Then, faster than Aziraphale had thought it could move, it swivels around to face him. Its body is still in the same hunched position as before, the neck grotesquely tilted, and it doesn’t straighten up as it turns. Its jaw swings dangerously at the sudden movement. Its neck elongates and twists like a coil, moving the creature’s skull until it can look directly into Aziraphale’s eyes. Its tongue is forked and moving constantly in its gaping mouth, uncaring when it slashes itself open on the yellow teeth. He thinks it might be smiling, but Aziraphale can’t pay attention to that, because something is happening to its face. A dark circle has appeared on its forehead as though carved by an invisible knife. Black, congealed blood is forming in clumps around the spot, splattering on the sidewalk as the symbol grows more complex and more blood rises up. 

The Mark of the Beast. Aziraphale would know the symbol anywhere. 

He feels a wave of nausea wash over his corporation and has to grip the edge of the counter to keep himself upright. They were supposed to have more time. He is at least grateful that Crowley isn’t here. 

“Are you alright, Mr. Fell?” Jacob is watching him and looking anxious. By occult mandate or by plain human luck, no one has noticed what’s happening in his doorway. He forces himself to straighten up, and before panic can overwhelm him, uses all of the power he has to miracle the Adversary into the back room of his shop. He feels slightly vindicated at the outrage he saw flash in those eyes before they vanished. 

“Jacob,” he says, his voice a little too casual and the smile on his face too brittle, “I am feeling a little under the weather today. Please get everyone outside and close the shop at once.” Jacob’s eyes go wide. 

Under the weather. It’s an old code phrase that Mr. Fell had taught him when he first started hanging out at the shop years ago, one that he’s been quizzed on so regularly he can recite the steps in his sleep: first, get everyone out of the shop, by force if he has to, though it’s best done quietly. Second, get the key hidden under a floorboard and unlock the cabinet tucked away in the back corner. Remove the tartan thermos and sit it on the table with a pair of gloves. And step three, the one Mr. Fell said was the most important of all: take all the money in the register and run, as far and fast as he can. 

Jacob is not stupid. He’s seen how Mr. Fell’s shop survives despite his truly atrocious bookkeeping habits, how Mr. Fell’s computer runs perfectly even though it doesn’t even have a modem, and he never bought the story that Mr. Fell’s strange eyes were the result of absorbing his twin in the womb/looking directly at an eclipse/mixing ammonia and bleach while cleaning the tub, or any of the other bullshit lies he told nosy customers. 

Mr. Fell is not a man like any of the others Jacob knows, or maybe even a man at all. But he is a good man, nonetheless, and this shop has been his home. He throws his arms around Mr. Fell and pulls away before he can react, running to the front of the shop and shouting that there’s been a gas leak, that everyone has to get out, that the authorities have already been called. As soon as the door shuts behind the last person he lunges for the key under the floorboard and prepares to get the thermos. He’s not religious, but he prays for Mr. Fell facing whatever is in the backroom, anyway. A terrible noise is rising from behind the closed door, like a tree groaning before it falls, like the time he heard a stray dog crunching on bones when he was still on the streets, and the temperature in the shop is rising by the minute. 

He locks the doors and flags down the first taxi he can find. He has enough money on him to go anywhere in the world. Far more money than should have been in a dingy pawnshop register. He could be in America tomorrow. 

The cab driver is watching him expectantly. He takes a breath and makes his decision. 

“Eden Florals, please, as quickly as you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sombrero Galaxy is real and looks like a Sombrero. You’re welcome. Also, this has been my favorite chapter to write! Just one left, now.


End file.
